


Nightly Beside the Green, Green Grass

by missmichellebelle



Series: Treehouse [2]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, First Love, High School, One-Sided Relationship, Pining, Underage Drinking, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:19:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, trying to get a drunk person into a treehouse is probably the stupidest plan Chris has <i>ever</i> had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightly Beside the Green, Green Grass

**Author's Note:**

> so here's the story about this fic:
> 
> I was looking through my old prompts on tumblr, and about two years ago, an anon asked me to write a sequel to Down By the Broken Treehouse. and probably, back then, I thought, "there's no way I'm ever going to have a sequel to write for this," but I left the prompt there nonetheless.
> 
> and now, two years down the road, it looks like I did in fact have a story to tell.
> 
> and it kind of hurts? lol sorry. what a way to re-enter this fandom, amright? ;D
> 
> SIDE NOTE: I never decided on when this AU took place, and so the songs on the radio are kind of all over the place. I literally just shuffled my iTunes and was like, "oh, yeah, I used to hear this on the radio." in order they are: "Catch my Breath" - Kelly Clarkson; "Empty Walls" - Serj Tankian; "Sweet Nothing (feat. Florence + the Machine)" - Calvin Harris; a jingle I hear on the radio/TV all the time; "Style" - Taylor Swift; "The Best of You" - The Foo Fighters.

“— _this is my life, and I won’t be told what’s supposed to be right. Catch my breath! No one can hold me back, I ain’t—_ “

CLICK.

“— _I want you to be left behind those empty walls. Taunt you to see from behind—_ “

CLICK.

“ _—it isn’t easy for me to let it go. ‘Cause I have swallowed every single word. And every whisper, every sigh—_ “

CLICK.

“ _Call 1-800-STEAMER, Stanley Steamer makes carpets—_ “

CLICK.

“ _—red lip, classic thing that you like. And when we go crashing down, we come back every time, ‘cause we never—_ “

CLICK.

“ _—my head is giving me life or death, but I can’t choose. I swear I’ll never give in, I refuse. Is someone getting the best, the best, the best—_ “

“Okay!” Chris shouts, shutting the car radio off completely and throwing the car into silence. “That’s enough of the radio.” He can see Darren’s shoulders slump out of the corner of his eye, and hears the _thunk_ of his forehead hitting the window. Chris is honestly a little impressed that Darren still managed to sing along with every song snippet before he got bored with it, but apparently however-many-beers he had at the party on top of whatever else he ingested doesn’t mess with his lyric memory. Who’d have thought?

The radio had been a way to get Darren to shut up, because he’d spent the first half of the ride telling Chris the same story about a giraffe print lamp three times, intermixed with laughing at things that sober people did not find funny for the most part but that drunk people always did, and Darren saying his name approximately ten thousand times.

But now, Darren is silent, forehead pressed against the window, and Chris throws him a worried glance.

“Dare, you okay?” Chris asks hesitantly, not knowing how to say, _please don’t throw up in my car_ while still maintaining the roll of concerned best friend. Darren mumbles something, and Chris tentatively touches his shoulder, eyes flicking back and forth from Darren to the road in front of him. “Do you feel like you’re going to be sick?” More mumbling, and Chris’s parents just helped him buy this car, he really doesn’t want to explain why it suddenly smells like vomit. “Do you need me to pull over?”

This time, Darren actually manages to shake his head, but Chris isn’t sure if that’s him being honest or him being drunkenly stubborn. Chris sighs, rubbing a few circles on what he can reach of Darren’s back.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be home soon.”

“ _No_ ,” Darren croaks, shaking his head again. “Can’t go home,” he tells Chris, voice raspy in a way that makes Chris think that Darren is _definitely_ going to be sick.

“Don’t throw up in my car,” he says, a little too sharply, and Darren actually chuckles weakly in response, making relief settle on Chris’s shoulders. Dealing with Darren after he’s been drinking is still new, and it took ten years for Chris to vaguely figure out his boundaries around sober Darren. He doesn’t really want to spend another ten finding the lines that define how he should act around a drunk one.

They’ve just turned onto their street when Darren finally manages to speak loud enough that Chris can discern what all his mumbling had been about. “Sorry.”

Chris shoots him an incredulous look.

“Why?”

“Everything,” is how Darren chooses to elaborate, and Chris rolls his eyes. He parks in the space that straddles the wooden fence that separates Darren’s house from Chris’s, and the second he shuts off the car, Darren is pouring out the door like his bones have turned to liquid, and seconds later Chris can hear him throwing up in the gutter behind his car. Chris sits there for a second, eyes closed, and takes a few deep breaths before getting out of the car. He’s been a sympathy vomiter his entire life, but maybe tonight is the night he will hopefully and miraculously break the habit.

Darren is on his knees in the grass by the trunk of his car, hands braced against the edge of the curb and head slumped between his shoulders so that all Chris can see is that wild mess of curls he refuses to cut. Chris is thankful it’s dark and that he can’t see what he definitely knows is sitting in the gutter, and keeps his eyes firmly away from it. Instead, he silently crouches next to Darren and rubs his back, frowning at the way Darren’s entire body seems to be shaking.

He glances up at Darren’s house, where his mom has dutifully left the porch light on, welcoming Darren home, and for not the first time in his life, Chris is jealous of Darren’s parents. They’d known that Darren was at a party, and they won’t care when Chris helps him into the house even though he’s completely wasted. In fact, they’ll probably be grateful to Chris for driving Darren home while he’s in such a state.

Chris knows that if he were to ever come home drunk, life as he currently knows it would be over. He’s 100% sober right in this moment, but he can already taste the thick swell of disappointment on his tongue. He shakes his head to get rid of it.

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” Chris coaxes, not bothering to ask if Darren’s okay. He just threw up in the street—he’s the furthest from okay he could possibly be right now.

Darren shakes his head very slightly, as if he’s scared of moving it.

“What? Are you going to be sick again?” Chris asks nervously, his stomach already rolling at the thought, but Darren shakes his head again.

“Can’t go home,” he insists, and Chris’s eyebrows skew in confusion.

“Don’t be stupid, Darren, of course you can, now—“

“No!” Darren’s voice gets louder, and he is balancing on his knees so quickly that he almost flips right onto his back. Chris grabs his shoulder to steady him.

“Woah, okay, slow down, I don’t want—“

“I can’t go home, Chris. I _can’t_ ,” Darren insists, hands pawing at Chris’s chest as if that will somehow convey something to him. Chris blinks slowly, staring at Darren’s distressed, glazed over eyes.

“Okay,” he drawls out slowly, trying to be understanding. “Why not?”

“I just _can’t_ , I can’t, I—please don’t make me go home, please, I can’t go home,” Darren babbles, and Chris bites his lip.

“Darren, it’s fine, your parents don’t care that you’ve been drinking—they know, remember? Your mom will even take care of you, we just need to—”

“Please,” Darren moans, and Chris is startled to see a few tears slide down Darren’s cheeks. Chris stares at him in alarm, coming to terms with the fact that no matter what reasonable arguments he states otherwise, there is no convincing Darren that it is okay for him to go home.

For some reason.

Drunk logic is about a hundred times more difficult to debate against, mainly because it makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

Chris sighs, throwing a glance at his own home, but discounts the idea quickly. Bringing a drunk Darren into his house is almost as bad of an idea as being drunk himself. His parents _like_ Darren, but they also don’t know about all of Darren’s, er, extracurricular activities. And if they did, they sure as hell wouldn’t approve of them, and Chris doesn’t want to know what that might mean for his friendship with Darren. He can’t even begin to consider it.

He briefly contemplates trying to shovel Darren back into the car and just… Camping out in it all night. It’s warm out, and they would be fine if slightly uncomfortable, but then his eyes land on the big tree in the backyard.

Well. He doesn’t have any better ideas.

*

In retrospect, trying to get a drunk person into a treehouse is probably the stupidest plan Chris has _ever_ had. Darren fights him the whole way, still pleading with Chris not to make him go home, his entire body suddenly going limp and nearly pinning Chris to the ground on several occasions. The walk from the street to the ladder takes far, far too long to begin with, and Chris doesn’t even start trying to figure out a way around the ladder until it’s right in front of him.

How had he forgotten about the ladder? The ladder that Darren _definitely_ won’t be able to climb at all in his current state.

Sighing heavily, he rakes a hand through his hair and looks around for a new idea. Chris wonders if Darren is drunk enough that he won’t realize Chris has brought him home if they go through the back way. He hums thoughtfully—it warrants a shot, at least.

“Hey, Dare—“ Chris turns, and then blinks at the spot in the grass where Darren had most recently given up on living. Glancing around frantically, Chris finally spots Darren halfway up the ladder to the treehouse, trying to move up a rung but kicking past the foothold on every single attempt. “ _Shit_ ,” Chris hisses, scrambling over towards the ladder and gripping the bottom of it. “Darren!” He scolds, and Darren looks down at him, wiggling his foot in a poor attempt at mimicking a wave. “Get down from there!”

“Nope!” Darren pops, and the ladder shakes precariously as he miraculously continues to climb up it without dying. Oh god. He’s going to die. He’s going to let go or step wrong and he’s going to fall and break his neck and it’s going to be _all Chris’s fault_.

He should get their parents. This is so far out of his hands now it’s ridiculous.

“Darren, come on, that’s not safe, you could get hurt!” Chris tries again, chewing on his lip so hard he hurts himself. “Please come down!”

“Make me!” Darren sing-songs, and Chris’s heart dips into his stomach as Darren bellyflops onto the floor of the treehouse—a little more safe from falling to his death now that he’s off the ladder, but he’s still 20 feet off the ground.

Chris sighs for what is probably the hundredth time that hour, and then starts to make his way up the ladder himself. There’s no way he’s going to try and get Darren back down, but he can at least make sure the jerk doesn’t kill himself while he’s up there. He completes the climb in a much shorter amount of time than he ever remembers doing it before. Then again, he’s quite a bit taller now than he was three years ago, which is the last time he remembers being up here, back when—

He glances at where Darren is lounging lazily in the pile of pillows, which is now definitely too small for the both of them, and swallows heavily.

Has it really been three years since that day? Not exactly, of course, it’s not like Chris circled it on his calendar, but… More or less, he supposes so. He looks around the treehouse, touching the wall reverently—this is the place where he realized that he was gay, and where Darren accepted him immediately. The place where he had his real first kiss—real first dozens of kisses, if he’s being honest—and Darren had been the one to give him that.

And Chris had been terrified. Terrified that everything had changed, that their friendship would never be the same, and he hadn’t slept that night, his fear and apprehension overriding everything good that had come out of that afternoon with Darren.

But there had been nothing to be afraid of. He woke up, and went to school, and nothing had changed. Darren was the same way he’d always been. He stuck around more, determined that his presence somehow kept the bullies at bay, but he never mentioned what transpired in the treehouse. And, after awhile, Chris came to the decision not to mention it, either.

Better to just let it stay what it was—a magical moment out of time, almost like a dream.

There were even a few times over the years, on those particularly hard nights when sleep refused to come and Chris’s entire future looked bleak, and black, and hopeless, that he had convinced himself that it was a dream.

Looking at Darren in the treehouse now, he finds that he’s still not quite sure if it ever really happened.

“Darren?” Chris asks gently, settling down near him. There’s not enough room for him to lay down, but he can sit just fine. Darren doesn’t answer, and it only takes Chris a few moments to realize that he’s passed out. Chris smiles gently down at him, reaching to card some fingers through his sweaty curls. It’s actually kind of gross, but Chris doesn’t get this opportunity this often. These days, it’s hard to find a time where Darren is vulnerable enough that Chris feels safe letting himself be vulnerable in return.

“You know,” Chris whispers, rubbing at the wrinkle between Darren’s eyebrows until it smooths out, and he hums in his sleep, happy and content and oblivious to the world around him. “I never really did make it official back then, did I?” His thumb traces down the slope of Darren’s nose. “I’m gay.” It croaks on the way out, still hard to say no matter how often Chris stares in the mirror in the middle of the night and whispers it over and over again.

Like maybe that’ll make it easier.

Like maybe that’ll make him braver.

His thumb falls to Darren’s lips, and they part against the touch, his breath coming out hot and damp against Chris’s skin, and he draws his hand away, cradling it against his chest.

“I—“ Chris shuts his eyes and shakes his head, breath coming out shakily, and he crosses his arms and looks away. He hasn’t practiced saying this part out loud, probably because he knows he’ll never say it. It rings around in his head on a near-constant basis, and he’s pretty sure it always will, and that’s just something he’ll have to live with for…

Well, for as long as he has to, really.

In the meantime, he’ll do what he’s always done. He’ll be there for Darren. He’ll listen to him no matter what he has to say, and take care of him when he’s sick, or drunk, or heartbroken. He’ll make him laugh in that way that makes him snort, and he’ll debate with him over which Hogwarts houses their favorite superheroes belong in. He’ll sit there and make sure he doesn’t roll out of the treehouse to his death, even though he has a math test to study for, and he’ll help Darren’s mom make pancakes in the morning because Darren loves pancakes when he’s hungover, and…

And Chris will have to hope that’ll be enough. That maybe, each of these things on top of the other, will let Darren know that Chris loves him without Chris ever having to say it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [read, reblog, & like on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/127665680730/nightly-beside-the-green-green-grass)


End file.
